In case you were confused about which part of the Bay Area is associated with Silicon Valley (I'm sure many of us are) here's a handy map:
http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/4707/officialsiliconvalleyreliefmap.jpg
Pink = San Francisco
Yellow = Oakland
Blue = Silicon Valley

Sta. Cruz and Stockton are part of Silicon Valley?

I think this is more accurate
http://www.jointventure.org/publications/index/2006index/images/map.gif
The Silicon Valley spreads out over 3 counties at the southern edge of San Francisco Bay. Santa Clara, San Mateo and Alameda.

Area 1,500 sq miles
Population 2.43 Million
Jobs 1.1 Million
Average Annual Wage $69,455
38% of Silicon Valley is Foreign Born

Racial Breakdown
40% White
33% Asian
23% Hispanic
3% Black
1% Other

nice map, but even my map doesn't show the whole picture. :horse:

here's a classic style
http://www.siliconvalleymap.com/images/2006_classic_pop.jpg

bump.

http://www.siliconbeat.com/wireless_graphic_powerpoint_notag.jpg
Seven bidders step up with wireless Net plan for valley
NETWORK TO COVER 1,500 SQUARE MILES FROM SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO THROUGH SANTA CRUZ
By Jessie Seyfer
Mercury News

Seven bidders stepped up Friday with proposals for bringing affordable wireless Internet access to all 1,500 square miles of Silicon Valley -- a costly, technically challenging task.

Among the companies that met Friday's deadline for proposals were Mountain View's MetroFi, which has already built networks across other areas of the Bay Area and San Jose's Cisco Systems, which was represented in two different bids, one with the Oregon-based wireless network company VeriLAN and another with IBM and the San Francisco non-profit group SeaKay.

Other plans were submitted by the Blue Horizon Group of San Francisco, Palo Alto-based Community Wireless, Carmel-based Fire2Wire and NextWLAN of Los Gatos. EarthLink and Google, which are teaming up to build a wireless Internet network across San Francisco, did not submit proposals.

The Wireless Silicon Valley project aims to build a network of thousands of radio transceivers carrying Internet signals to and from residents from South San Francisco and Fremont all the way south through Santa Cruz.

The proposals were not made public, but some companies explained their strategies.

MetroFi outlined a network similar to those it already operates in Cupertino, Santa Clara and Sunnyvale, where it offers free service with ads and a $20-per-month subscription without ads. Both have download speeds of 1 megabit per second, roughly equivalent to DSL service.

``This area is important to us,'' said Ben Zifrony, MetroFi's vice president of sales and business development.

Zifrony called the project ``an extension of what we were building anyway.''

VeriLAN, working with Cisco and other companies, hopes to build a wireless Internet network it can then lease to other Internet service providers and companies wholesale. Those ISPs would then be on the hook to provide Internet access to residents.

VeriLAN has been in talks with Google, America Online and Microsoft to resell space on their proposed network, said Clive Cook, VeriLAN's executive vice president.

Organizers of the Wireless Silicon Valley project plan to announce a winning vendor on Sept. 12. The project, which launched in April, comes at a time when an estimated 250 communities across the United States are planning similar networks or have already built them.

Supporters say the networks have the potential to bring Internet access to the masses cheaply, improve communication among public safety workers and streamline city services.

But skepticism has cropped up in many recent discussions, especially now that groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union have expressed concern over how well privacy will be protected on the networks.

In addition, technical and bureaucratic problems have plagued some projects, such as Sacramento's, which fell through entirely last month after city officials changed their minds about wanting free, rather than fee-based, Internet access. And holes and weak spots in networks in other cities, such as St. Cloud, Fla., have required extensive tweaking and extra equipment.

In a Webcast discussion on municipal wireless Internet projects earlier this week, wireless expert Craig Reid said networks and communities need to make sure the business models supporting wireless Internet networks are strong enough to keep them afloat. Some networks, like MetroFi's, rely on advertising revenue, fees from subscribers and communities for installing specialized services.

``Networks will need subsidies . . . to be sustainable in the long term, or there will be a need to change business models that are being implemented right now,'' said Reid, vice president of business development of the municipal networks unit at BelAir Networks in Ottawa.

ect:

from http://www.siliconbeat.com/

Pan-Silicon Valley WiFi network is coming -- The network will stretch from South San Francisco down to Santa Cruz. Seven players have bid to build the project, including Cisco, IBM and MetroFi. Winner announced Sept 12.


Google steals another from Microsoft -- This is getting into intimidating territory. First, Google stole Microsoft's man in China, reportedly causing Microsoft chief executive to throw a chair (though that story is contested). And now Google has hired away the general manager for platform evangelism at Microsoft, Vic Gundotra -- and this comes right after the departure of VP Martin Taylor, Ballmer's protege.


Francisco Partners, a San Francisco tech-only buyout fund, has finished raising $2.3 billion -- This is the firm's second fund, and puts it in the "big" camp, but behind Menlo Park-based Silver lake Partners' $3.6 billion tech buyout fund. Full story in Buyoutsnews.com


http://www.siliconbeat.com/Google%20Checkout.gif
Google Checkout: Will lose money to brutalize PayPal
Google has finally launched its own online payment service, and will stomach losing money on processing your credit cards -- in an aggressive move to go after competitor PayPal.
It is called Google Checkout, and our colleague Elise Ackerman has a good story in the Merc that talks about other benefits this will bring Google, including the ability to inspect user buying habits for the first time. That's one more step toward knocking away an advantage held by eBay in the marketplace.


Ding Dong, go the wedding bells of Hollywood and Silicon Valley
We are finally jumping into bed with each other in a furious way.
Warner Brothers said yesterday they had struck a deal with San Francisco company Guba.com, to distribute its new and vintage movies and TV shows via the online video site. It comes after Warner chose controversial San Francisco file-sharing company, BitTorrent, do help with the distribution. Then there's YouTube's announcement today that NBC will use it to promote its fall TV lineup. This adds to all he other stuff going on, including Cisco's aggressive chase after Hollywood content, signaled in May.


Io: Keep your paws off my video porn!
And here we were, thinking So. Cal was the home of porn, and northern California was above it all.
Turns out, San Francisco adult entertainment company Io Group filed a lawsuit last week against southern California's Veoh Networks, yet another of those online video-sharing services, alleging Veoh was allowing users to access Io's adult videos without permission.

Nanosolar to build world's largest solar cell factory in Bay Area (!)
Forgive the exclamation point. But this could be one of the greatest Silicon Valley stories this year.
Martin Roscheisen, the chief executive of Nanosolar, emailed us Monday to tell us he has finally done it. He has succeeded in taking far-out nanotechnology and applying it to solar cells in a way that promises to work commercially.
This is significant because all solar cells until now have been made from clunky, crystalline silicon. That's why you get these big old thick solar panels that some think are an eyesore. More importantly though, they have remained expensive, which is why you need states to subsidize solar projects. And lately, they've been in short supply, driving up costs even more. Martin's company, Nanosolar, has developed solar cells so thin you can paint them onto a piece of foil. It uses a copper alloy, called CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium Diselenide). The resulting cells are efficient as traditional silicon cells, but can be manufactured at one-fifth the cost.

Wireless Train Hits Rails in California
By RACHEL KONRAD
2 August 2006

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - The nation's first mass-transit train with wireless Internet access rolled through Silicon Valley this week, offering laptop-lugging testers access to the Web and e-mail without forcing them to peck at tiny phone or BlackBerry keyboards.

Nomad Digital Ltd. and Intel Corp. outfitted the Caltrain light-rail vehicle with WiMAX-based technology, which provided continuous high-speed Internet access between the popular Millbrae and Palo Alto stations. The train reached 79 mph while testers from the companies watched streaming video, composed e-mail and completed a large file download at broadband speeds.

The system links the train to track-side wireless base stations, with radios located every few miles along the rail. Caltrain might also use the technology to monitor train speeds and security cameras.

Randy Rudolph, Caltrain's chief information officer, said the successful debut means the company can introduce the technology along the entire line, from Gilroy north through San Jose to San Francisco. It will likely be available within two months. Caltrain does not plan to charge extra for the service.

Hexham, England-based Nomad has installed similar systems in the United Kingdom and Holland, and now is working on wireless projects in China, the Middle East and South America.

So that will be wireless for San Francisco, the Silicon Valley and our trains. Now we just need wireless for the East Bay, Marin County and our automobiles, and we would be one of the first completely wireless metropolises.

So that will be wireless for San Francisco, the Silicon Valley and our trains. Now we just need wireless for the East Bay, Marin County and our automobiles, and we would be one of the first completely wireless metropolises.Taipei already has wifi throughout the city.

Taipei's wireless net is slow to catch on
Ken Belson
The New York Times
26 June 2006

Peter Shyu, an engineer, spends most of his day out of the office, so when he needs an Internet connection he often pops into one of the many coffee shops in this city that offer free wireless access. He could use WiFly, the extensive wireless network commissioned by the city government that is the cornerstone of Taipei's ambitious plan to turn itself into an international technology hub. But that would cost him $12.50 a month.

"I'm here because it's free, and if it's free elsewhere, I'll go there, too," said Shyu, hunched over his laptop in an outlet of the Doutor coffee chain. "It's very easy to find free wireless connections."

Despite WiFly's ubiquity with 4,100 hot spot access points reaching 90 percent of the population just 40,000 of Taipei's 2.6 million residents have agreed to pay for the service since January. Q-Ware, the local Internet provider that built and runs the network, once expected to have 250,000 subscribers by the end of the year. It has lowered that target to 200,000.

That such a vast and reasonably priced wireless network has attracted so few users in an otherwise technology-hungry metropolis should give pause to civic leaders in Chicago, Philadelphia and dozens of other U.S. cities that are building wireless networks of their own.

Like Taipei, these cities hope to use their new networks to help less affluent people get online and to make their cities more business-friendly. Yet as Taipei has found out, just building a citywide network does not guarantee that people will use it. Most people already have plenty of access to the Internet in their offices and at home, while wireless data services let them get online anywhere using phones, laptops and PDAs.

Like Q-Ware, operators in the United States, Europe and other parts of Asia are eager to build municipal networks. But they are grappling with the high expectations politicians are placing on them. On June 9, MobilePro backed out of plans to develop a wireless network in Sacramento, California, because it said the city wanted it to offer free access and recoup its investment with advertising, not subscriptions, a model that other cities are hoping to adopt. Elsewhere, incumbent carriers have challenged cities' rights to requisition new networks. And many services have had difficulty attracting customers.

"There is a lot of hype about public access," said Craig Settles, a technology consultant in Oakland, California, and author of "Fighting the Good Fight for Municipal Wireless." "What's missing from a lot of these discussions is what people are willing to pay for."

Q-Ware's relationship with Taipei has been less contentious, partly because the WiFly network is part of a far broader and highly regarded plan to incorporate the Internet into everything the government does.

The brainchild of Taipei's mayor, Ma Ying-jeou, the CyberCity project was conceived in 1998 as a way to catapult past Seoul, Hong Kong and other Asian capitals that were recasting themselves as cities of the future. Many government agencies now communicate almost exclusively online, saving millions of dollars, and citizens have been given hundreds of thousands of free e-mail accounts and computer lessons. WiFly plays a role, too, by allowing police officers to submit traffic tickets wirelessly, for instance. But making it appeal to the average citizen is another story. Q-Ware, which is part of a conglomerate that, among other things, operates 7- Eleven franchises in Taiwan, has found that consumers will pay subscription fees only if there are original offerings to pull them in. "Content is really key," said Darrell West, a professor of public policy at Brown University. "It's not enough just to have the infrastructure. You have to give people a reason to use the technology."

To that end, Q-Ware has developed P-Walker, a service that will let subscribers with Sony PSP portable game machines log on to WiFly to play online games and download songs and other material.

The company has also developed a low-priced phone service that works with both cellular antennas and WiFly hot spots to transmit calls over the Internet.

Ultimately, Q-Ware expects its network to communicate with more devices that have wireless capabilities, including MP3 players and digital cameras.

"In the beginning, you have to do something to attract people to the service," said Sheng Chang, the vice president of Q-Ware's wireless business group. "We're a wireless city, so if we can't make it here, it can't be made."

That's why I said one of the first ;) although I think Taipei is a single city rather than a metropolis.

San Francisco and the Silicon Valley together comprise an area about twice as large as Taipei, although the wireless planned for the Valley would cover an area about two to three times as much as what I would consider to be inside the region's limits, including over hills that few people occupy.

Not sure how useful it'll be
Caltrain only goes as far north as Southern SF, to go to SF people usually switch to Bart in Millbrae, thus the average ride takes quite short

Wireless would be more fun for a SF to LA train.

this is lies ACE has had wifi for a while now :)

So ACE and Capitol Corridor, and now Caltrain, why does the Bay Area need 3 or more wireless trains. Doesn't matter to me because I don't use them :happy:

As a Caltrain rider all I can say is :Wahooooooooooooo!! :)

http://sfgate.com/c/pictures/2006/08/19/mn_mathcastle_nybz308.jpg
(08-18) 12:32 PDT Morgan Hill, Calif. (AP) --

Think of it as the ultimate ivory tower for academics: a castle inspired by Spain's Alhambra, lavished with sun-dappled courtyards, artisan-crafted frescoes, grottos, fountains and a patio with 12 marble lions that spit water every hour on the hour.

But instead of housing nobles atop an Iberian hill, the newest fortress will serve as a quiet retreat for mathematicians next to a golf course in suburban Silicon Valley.

The castle, which the Morgan Hill City Council approved last month, will be the new headquarters of the American Institute of Mathematics. It's expected to be complete by 2009.

The institute and castle are the brainchild of electronics retailer John Fry, who owns the nearby links and plans to donate his impressive collection of historical documents — including original math texts and writings of Nobel Prize winners such as Albert Einstein — to the institute's library.

Fry, the media-shunning co-founder and chief executive of Fry's Electronics Inc., refused requests to be interviewed about the castle he's funding. The 167,000-square-foot palace — bigger than a typical Wal-Mart — is rumored to cost more than $50 million, although people involved in the project admit no one will know the true cost until it's finished.

The retail magnate, who studied math at Santa Clara University, is taking a hands-on role in everything from the design to the selection of tile artisans and wood workers. He spent five days in the Alhambra, exploring villas, chambers and salons with Scott Stotler, a consultant who for years has been tweaking the design to Fry's specifications.

"We spent so much time there that you could pretty much stick us in a dungeon and I'd know how to get out," said Stotler, head of Stotler Design Group.

Fry's involvement in the minutia of castle construction doesn't surprise people who know him. He's shaped nearly every aspect of his family's 32-store chain, a nerdy utopia where techno-savvy shoppers can get deals on computer parts, networking equipment and appliances — if they're willing to overlook abysmal customer service, sketchy refund policies and clerks who make little more than minimum wage.

Fry opened the first store in Sunnyvale with his brothers in 1985, and Fry's Electronics now operates in nine states.

The Better Business Bureau routinely pans Fry's. Consumer advocates berate the stores for luring shoppers with deeply discounted items, then enticing them to buy higher-priced merchandise and make impulse purchases.

But Fry's, which sells everything from microchips to potato chips, has obsessive fans, particularly in Silicon Valley.

Fry, who learned about retailing from his grocer father, co-founded the mathematics institute in 1994. Roughly 800 mathematicians go to its campus in Palo Alto each year to ponder math questions.

About five years ago, academics from Princeton University and elsewhere convened at the institute to solve one piece of a conundrum known as the "perfect graph conjecture." It involved an analysis of 2,000 hours of supercomputer calculations from 1976.

Fry, who also owns the San Jose SaberCats arena football team, visited numerous castles looking for inspiration for the new headquarters. He fixated on the Alhambra both for aesthetics — it's considered the best example of Moorish art in Europe — and mathematic symbolism.

The Andalusian fortress, built primarily between 1248 and 1354, bursts with geometric patterns in every arabesque, column, garden and reflecting pool. It was built with running water and a medieval climate-control system envied throughout Europe and the Islamic world.

"The interesting geometric patterns present throughout the Alhambra's tiles, ceilings and walls — they're perfect for mathematicians," said institute Executive Director Brian Conrey, who hasn't visited Granada but hopes to go soon. "Mathematicians have a tradition of communing with nature while thinking about deep questions. It's inspiring to be in a location that lets you ponder the things mathematicians like to think about, and Morgan Hill will be just such a place."

The castle will replace The Flying Lady Ranch, a vacant restaurant on 190 acres of Fry family property south of San Jose. Demolition will begin in October.

Stotler emphasized that the math castle is going to be a homage to the Alhambra, not a replica. Although Spanish stone masons and stained-glass artisans will give the place an authentic feel, it will have unabashedly modern touches, including 30,000 square feet of underground parking and a gourmet-industrial kitchen with master chefs from a San Francisco seafood restaurant and a Napa Valley resort.

The math castle will include its own version of the Fountain of Lions, the Alhambra's alabaster basin flanked by 12 white marble lions, which signify strength and courage. In the 15th century, each lion spit a stream of water every hour — a clock far more advanced than any sundial at the time.

During the Reconquest of Spain in 1492, Christians disassembled the clock to see how it functioned. Since then, no one has been able to get it to work.

"We could cheat and do it electronically, but I'm not sure if John would allow that," Stotler said.
(http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/08/18/state/n123208D91.DTL)
So there's the Winchester mansion and now this!

Silicon Valley to get public Wi-Fi network
Ambitious project by Metro Connect will cover 38 cities

- Jessica Guynn and Verne Kopytoff, Chronicle Staff Writers

Wednesday, September 6, 2006

Looping together cities stretching from Daly City to Santa Cruz, Silicon Valley is on the verge of creating the country's largest public wireless Internet network that will serve as many as 2.4 million people in 38 cities in four counties and cover nearly 1,500 square miles.

All cities in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties are participating in the Wireless Silicon Valley Project that on Tuesday picked Silicon Valley Metro Connect, a collaboration of Azulstar Networks, Cisco Systems, IBM and Seakay, to build and operate the wireless network in the world's most wired place, said Brian Moura, assistant city manager of San Carlos and co-chairman of the project.

Users would be able to access the Internet wirelessly from their computers, cellular phones or PDAs anywhere outside, from city parks to their cars. Because the service is designed for the outdoors, customers will likely have to buy a device that costs $80 to $120 to use the wireless network indoors.

"In theory, you should be able to move around Silicon Valley and no matter what city you are in, ... flip open your laptop, turn on your wireless antenna and be on (the Internet)," Moura said.

The regional network could break ground as early as next year and may ultimately become a test for cutting-edge technologies, Moura said. Wi-Fi, as wireless Internet is called, could potentially be used for Internet telephone calls, movie downloads and monitoring traffic congestion. The agreement with Silicon Valley Metro Connect requires the companies to update their technology every three years, Moura said.

In choosing a team to build its network, Silicon Valley joins a long list of areas racing to bring residents wireless Internet connections. San Francisco is negotiating with EarthLink and Google for Wi-Fi service, and Philadelphia is working with EarthLink on a similar network.

Given the large area to be covered in Silicon Valley, the job will be formidable. The winning team expects to install at least 30,000 access points to give blanket coverage.

She said that the network will roll out in portions of Silicon Valley, starting 30 days after the installation work begins.

Boosters hope the project will become a wireless pioneer. Valley residents and businesses would gain access to different levels of outdoor wireless service, from the basic free service -- subsidized by advertising -- to services that offer higher speeds and tighter security starting at $15 a month, according to Moura. There is even a tier of service geared toward police and fire departments.

Next week, the Wireless Silicon Valley Task Force will begin negotiations with Metro Connect on a contract that will be distributed to all the cities and public agencies for approval. The first agencies to approve the agreement and permits for installation of network equipment will be the first to get the wireless coverage, Moura said.

Privacy advocates object to the industry practice of gathering information about users to sell advertising, but the team that will build the network insists that its service will protect user privacy.

That's crazy.

Yay, I thought this had been cut off but it's going to happen!

Of course... I wonder if it'll be fast enough to play PSP online or not. If not, then... well it'll be ok, but not that great lol..

nice map, but even my map doesn't show the whole picture. :horse:

here's a classic style
http://www.siliconvalleymap.com/images/2006_classic_pop.jpg

HAHA.. seems like this was written by people in SF. Silicon Valley starts at menlo park continuing south to south San Jose and over to to the East, Fremont is the starts of silicon valley.. The first map where it has blue for everything in the bay area is not correct at all..

Just more unnecessary 4-0-Hate...

Damn San Franciscans with your liberal ideas about Arts!!! My XZp100 PDA spits on your million dollar art work!!!

Haha Just kidding.

Interesting that in the map, the north bay is part of the silicon valley too! And the coast! :lol:

HAHA.. seems like this was written by people in SF. Silicon Valley starts at menlo park continuing south to south San Jose and over to to the East, Fremont is the starts of silicon valley.. The first map where it has blue for everything in the bay area is not correct at all..

Traditionally, that is the boundary, but people have moved it as far North as redwood city now, and there's a sense of the "New Silicon Valley" with loads of biotech firms now opening all around the Bay Area.

So I guess it depends on what they define it as.

How dare those commoners doubt the accuracy of my OFFICIAL map.
In the context of tech companies in the Bay Area as seen by outsiders, even SF and Oakland could be considered part of the "Silicon Valley". Interestingly, some longer-term residents might take issue with this!

No, SF and Oakland are NOT Silicon Valley. I hope you're joking...

bay_area got it right. Silicon Valley consists of all of Santa Clara county and the southern portions of Alameda and San Mateo counties. Sure there is high tech in other parts of the Bay Area, but they are not SV proper. The Silicon Valley is a unique portion of the region.

If there is national confusion about exactly where SV is, its because its as much a mythical place as a specific region. (The same could be said of another powerful California center, Hollywood.) That said, it does have specific parameters. In addition, everyone, including those outside Silicon Valley in the Bay Area, want a piece of the pie. Thats why Mayor Willie Brown of SF used to talk about SV as if it ran down the Embarcadero. Pathetic...

http://www.brighternaming.com/images/Silicon_Valley_Map.jpg

In addition, everyone, including those outside Silicon Valley in the Bay Area, want a piece of the pie. Thats why Mayor Willie Brown of SF used to talk about SV as if it ran down the Embarcadero. Pathetic...
Eh, what's new about San Franciscans mistakenly thinking of the entire Bay Area as a suburb of their city?

Eh, what's new about San Franciscans mistakenly thinking of the entire Bay Area as a suburb of their city?

The entire Bay Area has always been a suburb of San Francisco. Get use to it.

The entire Bay Area has always been a suburb of San Francisco. Get use to it.
Would you care to explain your reasoning?

The entire Bay Area has always been a suburb of San Francisco. Get use to it.

Yes, please do.

haha, yes, Menlo Park right here.

Thats where I stay =)

The entire Bay Area has always been a suburb of San Francisco. Get use to it.

It might have been that way when it started out, but each pole of the tripolar Bay Area have developed their own niche, and it can hardly be said that the entire bay area is a suburb of SF, especially considering that, by definition itself, SJ and Oakland are hardly "suburban"

It might have been that way when it started out, but each pole of the tripolar Bay Area have developed their own niche, and it can hardly be said that the entire bay area is a suburb of SF, especially considering that, by definition itself, SJ and Oakland are hardly "suburban"

Yes! Gladismo, may I but you a drink? Cheers!
:cheers:

To be more precise, it did not start that way but was the case for a long time. After all, San Jose is older*!

*obligatory SJ boosterism

In case you were confused about which part of the Bay Area is associated with Silicon Valley (I'm sure many of us are) here's a handy map:
http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/4707/officialsiliconvalleyreliefmap.jpg
Pink = San Francisco
Yellow = Oakland
Blue = Silicon Valley

retarded.

nice map, but even my map doesn't show the whole picture. :horse:

here's a classic style
http://www.siliconvalleymap.com/images/2006_classic_pop.jpg

Well at least the central focus here is the golden triangle area (the area on the map bound by 101, 273, and 880). On the map it looks huge, but really its a very small area with more IT companies and IT infrastructure clustered together than anywhere else (by far, 3x margin). Most of the key semiconductor companies on the planet are headquartered there.

retarded.

The thing that's retarded are people wasting space on this server making meaningless one word comments without any logic or reasoning behind them.

Cool map

The thing that's retarded are people wasting space on this server making meaningless one word comments without any logic or reasoning behind them.

my one word comment wastes a whole lot less bandwith than these fanatical, complex-driven pictures...

You need a faster internet connection and some common sense.

Silicon Valley makes Prius No. 1
GAS-SIPPER JUMPS FROM NO. 5 IN '06
By Matt Nauman
Mercury News
Article Launched: 07/20/2007 01:34:33 AM PDT

http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site568/2007/0720/20070720__prius~1_Gallery.JPG

http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site568/2007/0720/20070720_093226_priuspopularity_400.jpg

Through May, 1,627 Prius registrations have been recorded in Santa Clara County, according to R.L. Polk. That puts the Prius ahead of Toyota's Camry and Corolla and Honda's Accord and Civic, all cars that outsell the high-mileage, gas-electric sedan nationwide. Locally, the Prius was No. 5 behind those models last year.

"Are we ahead of the curve, or what?" asked Rod Diridon, executive director of the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University, and a Prius owner.

The Prius' newfound status reflects the continued greening of Silicon Valley. Diridon listed sustained higher gas prices, the availability of carpool-lane stickers

for solo Prius drivers - no more are being issued - and the intelligence of local residents as factors in the Prius' popularity.
"The intellectual capacity within Silicon Valley is amazing," he said. "That higher level of education reflects a higher level of understanding of the terrible consequences of global warming."

At 60 miles per gallon in city driving and 51 mpg on the highway, the 2007 Prius is the most fuel-efficient car on the road, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says. When the EPA's formula for figuring gas mileage changes for the 2008 model year, the Prius probably will retain its gas-sipping status, but the numbers will drop to 48 city and 45 highway.

Prius sales are up 45 percent in Santa Clara County and 65 percent in the 11-county Bay Area so far this year. The model has been popular in California since it went on sale in 2000, but it is catching on nationwide. U.S. Prius sales through June, according to industry publication Automotive News, are up 96 percent compared with the first six months of 2006.
Still, at 94,503 sales, the Prius represents just 1 percent of U.S. car and truck sales so far this year. In Santa Clara County, Prius registrations represent 5.3 percent of the market.

The Prius news doesn't surprise Bob Boden. He has driven more than 63,000 miles on his 2004 Prius and he gets about 50 mpg in the city and a little more on the highway.

"My 2004 Prius is easily the best car (of 29) I have ever owned," he said.

Boden has homes in Oregon and San Jose. His granddaughter, a recent graduate of California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo, is now driving the 2006 Prius that Boden bought for his wife. "She says she just loves the car," he said.

Besides a "convergence of awareness" about environmental issues, Prius availability is another key to its success, said Toyota spokesman John Hanson.

Until this year, Prius models were in short supply, which led to customer

waiting lists and some instances of people paying more than sticker price for the car.
Now, Hanson said, customers walk in and find available Priuses on the showroom floor. "That really made a difference," he said.

Today, people are paying less than the sticker price for a new Prius. A base 2007 Prius lists for $22,795, including destination charge. People are paying $21,711 for that car, car-shopping Web site edmunds.com says.

http://www.mercurynews.com/greenenergy/ci_6420656

No surprises there. The smugmobile was taylor-made for Smug City

No surprises there. The smugmobile was taylor-made for Smug City

Damn skippy.:banana:

No surprises there. The smugmobile was taylor-made for Smug City
That would be funny if the article was actually about San Francisco.

Bah. You know what they say. Don't let reality stand in the way of a bad joke.

http://www.planearium2.de/pics/pics-1002.jpg

Blue Collar Goes Green: Hybrid-Only Repair Shop Opens in San Francisco

http://www.wired.com/images/article/full/2007/09/hybrid_mechanic_SF_580x.jpg
Carolyn Coquillette owns Luscious Garage, an auto-repair shop that only services hybrids.
Photo: Courtesy of Dane Golden

SAN FRANCISCO -- The nation's first auto repair shop specializing in hybrids has opened in the city's trendy SOMA district.

Luscious Garage, owned by mechanic Carolyn Coquillette, is part of a small but growing movement. A number of independent mechanics nationwide are now servicing hybrids, but Coquillette's shop is the first aiming to build its core business around hybrids.

"There's a critical mass of hybrids in the Bay Area, enough to support a shop like this," she said. "You could have opened it three years ago but there wouldn't have been enough cars, and I don't think enough public interest to really have fueled it."

Coquillette, 29, has been a mechanic for seven years and began working on hybrids a couple of years ago. There is no formal hybrid certification. She first cut her teeth in auto repair not far from Detroit, when she signed up for a community college course just after graduating from the University of Michigan with a dual degree in physics and English.

"I had had this problem with my vehicle and I thought, I've got a God damn degree in physics, I should be able to turn off my dome light," she said.

Luscious Garage claims to be a green business with a formal sustainability plan.

"Typically people look down upon auto repair as dirty," Coquillette said. "A green auto repair facility is so essential in terms of moving into this next stage where we have to be so mindful of our environmental impact. A lot about this shop is saying we're aware of what we're doing and we're going to consistently try and do better."

To keep its environmental impact low, Luscious Garage avoids VOCs (volatile organic compounds), offers re-refined motor oil, uses local suppliers when possible and recycles its scrap metal. To cut paper usage, the shop registers customers and prints receipts online.

The shop is equipped with a high-efficiency air compressor and relies on the building’s skylights more than its electric lights, which are compact fluorescents. In fact, the only devices left on are the Wi-Fi, fax machine, refrigerator and alarm system. And although Coquillette owns a Toyota Prius, she mostly rides her bike to work or takes the bus, she says.

According to the automotive research and marketing company R. L. Polk, 255,000 new hybrids were registered in 2006, and 21,000 of those were in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Jack Rosebro, a sought-after hybrid technician instructor who has taught with Coquillette, says this type of specialization will put shop owners ahead of the curve.

"I look at this as a natural extension of the industry," he said. "It's only natural that eventually someone would do this and focus solely on the hybrid so they can give the best service to their customer."

Though hybrids have a reputation as being largely trouble-free, there are lots of components of a hybrid that are unique -- not least the complex electronics.

"It gets very complicated very quickly," Coquillette said. "And down the rabbit hole we go."

http://www.wired.com/cars/coolwheels/news/2007/09/hybrid_mechanic#

...

http://www.planearium2.de/pics/pics-1002.jpg

lol

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/5980/34055238gm0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I wouldn't drive that car. If I'm gonna drive I want something like a Lexus.
My wife drives a Nissan Pathfinder. :)
one of my biggest complaints about these hybrid cars is that they look like hybrids....all weirdly shaped.

Anyway,
Lexus has the first luxury hybrid coming out next year, I heard there's already a waiting list around here....which sucks for those who want it.

2008 LS 600h L
http://www.speedsportlife.com/photopost/data/993/thumbs/2008_LS600hL_01.jpg

http://www.speedsportlife.com/photopost/data/993/thumbs/2008_LS600hL_07.jpg

one of my biggest complaints about these hybrid cars is that they look like hybrids....all weirdly shaped.

Anyway,
Lexus has the first luxury hybrid coming out next year, I heard there's already a waiting list around here....which sucks for those who want it.

2008 LS 600h L
http://www.speedsportlife.com/photopost/data/993/thumbs/2008_LS600hL_01.jpg

http://www.speedsportlife.com/photopost/data/993/thumbs/2008_LS600hL_07.jpg
I think the Prius is a rip-off. I'll elaborate later.

Another meia-complaint I have about Hybrids is that in California(im sure other states have something similar) they are permitted to drive in carpool lanes with just one occupant...so long as they have these little stickers on the their bumpers.
http://www.toyota.com/html/hybridsynergyview/2005/fall/images/i_perks.jpg

Now that prius is the best selling car in the bay area, maybe we should remove that priviledge from them since they clog carpool lanes much of the time.

LOL...we gotta be careful for the smugstorm coming. :lol:

That said, I like the premise of the Prius, but I hate the design and the price is too high.

one of my biggest complaints about these hybrid cars is that they look like hybrids....all weirdly shaped.
Why not go local and fully electric with the Tesla Roadster?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/TeslaRoadster-front.jpg/800px-TeslaRoadster-front.jpg

Hell yeah, Tesla's are awesome. I don't like the Prius, it's ugly. I'd rather have a diesel for the fuel economy and the emissions are getting better.

It turns out that the South Park "Smug" episode was right on.

Do San Franciscans like the smell of their farts too?

Hell yeah, Tesla's are awesome. I don't like the Prius, it's ugly. I'd rather have a diesel for the fuel economy and the emissions are getting better.

You can't buy a diesel in California.

Anyway, I see so many Priuses nowadays. My dad is thinking of getting one for the fuel economy, and I supported it at first... but the car's ugliness, slowness, and popularity is getting to me. (I don't want to see myself around every corner)

The Lexus LS is a damn nice car, hybrid or no hybrid.

I drove one..once. And almost crashed. There's just no response from the electronic steering. I think they drive like crap. As for economy...

...diesels are much better, plus no batteries to dispose of. Luckily, Californian lawmakers outlawed diesel vehicles long ago– a very wise move on their part. Then again, does anyone consider the amount of energy expended in building a new car?! A lot. A lot, lot.

Yeah, what a wise move, I'll be enjoying the practical performance of a diesel and still get farther on a tank of gas than a hybrid will.

Prius lovers please enjoy this reading:


Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.
The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius’ battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist’s nightmare.
“The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside,” said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin during an interview with Mail, a British-based newspaper.
The Recorder Online
By Chris Demorro

anybody have recent sales figures for other cities in the US and Canada?

Prius lovers please enjoy this reading:


Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.
The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius’ battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist’s nightmare.
“The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside,” said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin during an interview with Mail, a British-based newspaper.
The Recorder Online
By Chris Demorro

BLAME CANADA! BLAME CANADA! :banana:

http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/7840/80667856yr8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Prius lovers please enjoy this reading:


Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.
The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius’ battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist’s nightmare.
“The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside,” said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin during an interview with Mail, a British-based newspaper.
The Recorder Online
By Chris Demorro

I thought people in the Bay Area were supposed to be smart?

People have been arguing back and forth about this issue. I heard about this Hummer thing a long time ago, and then shortly after saw it "disproved" somewhere else.

Until I see some concrete evidence, I'm not believing it either way.

I thought people in the Bay Area were supposed to be smart?

we is, we is.

People have been arguing back and forth about this issue. I heard about this Hummer thing a long time ago, and then shortly after saw it "disproved" somewhere else.

Until I see some concrete evidence, I'm not believing it either way.

I'm into cars and have read a little about hybrids, but I don't know if that's true or not either, I was just being an ass. These hybrids DO have huge batteries that will eventually need to be disposed of though.

I do know that many people don't get the advertised mileage from their hybrids, and that Lexus 600L is a joke.

Personally, I think people would be better off skipping the Prius and just getting a Corolla. It doesn't get quite as good mileage, but it still gets very good mileage, is much cheaper, much lighter, handles better, is faster, doesn't have a huge battery, and every mechanic knows how to work on it. Then, with the money saved by buying a Corolla instead of a Prius, people could donate to their favorite eco-charity.

BUT then they wouldn't be cool, cause they wouldn't be driving a hybrid.

People have been arguing back and forth about this issue. I heard about this Hummer thing a long time ago, and then shortly after saw it "disproved" somewhere else.

Until I see some concrete evidence, I'm not believing it either way.

When you pool together all the combined energy it takes to drive and build a Toyota Prius, the flagship car of energy fanatics, it takes almost 50 percent more energy than a Hummer - the Prius’s arch nemesis.
Through a study by CNW Marketing called “Dust to Dust,” the total combined energy is taken from all the electrical, fuel, transportation, materials (metal, plastic, etc) and hundreds of other factors over the expected lifetime of a vehicle. The Prius costs an average of $3.25 per mile driven over a lifetime of 100,000 miles - the expected lifespan of the Hybrid.
The Hummer, on the other hand, costs a more fiscal $1.95 per mile to put on the road over an expected lifetime of 300,000 miles. That means the Hummer will last three times longer than a Prius and use less combined energy doing it.
The Recorder Online
By Chris Demorro

Why not go local and fully electric with the Tesla Roadster?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/TeslaRoadster-front.jpg/800px-TeslaRoadster-front.jpg
My neighbor drives a Tesla everyday to his job in Sunnyvale. If I get one, he'll think Im copying...LOL

we is, we is.

speak for yourself, Im a dumbass.:banana:

Personally, I think people would be better off skipping the Prius and just getting a Corolla. It doesn't get quite as good mileage, but it still gets very good mileage, is much cheaper, much lighter, handles better, is faster, doesn't have a huge battery, and every mechanic knows how to work on it. Then, with the money saved by buying a Corolla instead of a Prius, people could donate to their favorite eco-charity.

BUT then they wouldn't be cool, cause they wouldn't be driving a hybrid.

i have a corolla - yea, its not really "cool" but it was a hell of a lot cheaper than a new prius

in my experience, toyotas are two things: practical and very very reliable - typical japanese engineering at its best

o yes, and were all hella smart around here
(if we havent smoked yet that day ;))

I do know that many people don't get the advertised mileage from their hybrids, and that Lexus 600L is a joke.

Personally, I think people would be better off skipping the Prius and just getting a Corolla.

Or better yet, a Yaris :)

I've read about the mileage thing too, apparently its all manipulating the way the EPA or whoever does the tests, and you have to drive very lightly to get the mileage they advertise. Amazingly, I have a 10 year old camry that still gets 25 combined mpg as I drive it, but when I first started driving, the car only got about 19 mpg, and I can get it as high as 27 mpg.

That's a 40 percent difference based on driving style.

When you pool together all the combined energy it takes to drive and build a Toyota Prius, the flagship car of energy fanatics, it takes almost 50 percent more energy than a Hummer - the Prius’s arch nemesis.
Through a study by CNW Marketing called “Dust to Dust,” the total combined energy is taken from all the electrical, fuel, transportation, materials (metal, plastic, etc) and hundreds of other factors over the expected lifetime of a vehicle. The Prius costs an average of $3.25 per mile driven over a lifetime of 100,000 miles - the expected lifespan of the Hybrid.
The Hummer, on the other hand, costs a more fiscal $1.95 per mile to put on the road over an expected lifetime of 300,000 miles. That means the Hummer will last three times longer than a Prius and use less combined energy doing it.
The Recorder Online
By Chris Demorro

I've read this before. One thing about it is that even if it does cost more to make a Prius (I don't doubt that, considering the amount of technology and finer, purer materials needed to make parts of the vehicle (batteries, etc.) is probably more than that of your run of the mill SUV (Hummer, Yukon, Navigator, etc.).

The thing with that is if the energy is spent during the manufacturing process and emissions are controlled better thereafter, you concentrate the harmful materials instead of diffusing it. The same argument can be made for something like hydrogen cars, which is energy intensive to manufacture (nothing beats crude oil in terms of ease of obtaining it, you just mine it and stick it in a refinery), but hydrogen cars can concentrate the emissions to the plants manufacturing the hydrogen.

I still agree the best "eco" option is probably a light car with a small petrol/diesel engine. There are just too many factors that go into something like that, and at the end of the day, people can argue for their cause one way or another. What matters to ME, is that the cost for ME running the car will be kept to the lowest :)

Every cabbie I meet who drives one says that they absolutly love to drive them. It makes me want to buy one, but I drive so little (2,000 mi/year) that my mercedes will probably still be around for another 30 years.

Every cabbie I meet who drives one says that they absolutly love to drive them. It makes me want to buy one, but I drive so little (2,000 mi/year) that my mercedes will probably still be around for another 30 years.
If they love to drive that it must be because they come from India and they're used to driving Peroduas and the likes.

I'm waiting for the GM volt. Plug in hybrid electric car with 40 mile range all electric and the engine runs as a range extender up to something like 650 miles at around 50 mpg (not counting what the all electric does to the millage).

http://www.gm-volt.com/

If they love to drive that it must be because they come from India and they're used to driving Peroduas and the likes.

or the fact they get to pocket all of that saved gas money! (given they own their cab, of course!) besides, they have to be a million times better than the p.o.s. fords or chevys the rest of 'em drive.

^^ a lot of them are old police interceptors

My neighbor drives a Tesla everyday to his job in Sunnyvale. If I get one, he'll think Im copying...LOL

I didn't realize they sold roadsters in 2007.

By MARCUS WOHLSEN (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110529/ap_on_re_us/us_anti_college_scholarship), Associated Press – Sun May 29, 3:41 pm ET

http://d.yimg.com/a/p/ap/20110529/capt.f01c0bf94d1a4496ae7a91679223ba0a-f01c0bf94d1a4496ae7a91679223ba0a-0.jpg?x=400&y=271&q=85&sig=M._rzYda3NTeVMdCR6OtpA--

SAN FRANCISCO – Instead of paying attention in high school, Nick Cammarata preferred to read books on whatever interested him. He also has a gift for coding that got him into Carnegie Mellon University's esteemed computer science program despite his grades.

But the 18-year-old programmer won't be going to college this fall. Or maybe ever.

Cammarata is one of two dozen winners of a scholarship just awarded by San Francisco tech tycoon Peter Thiel that comes with a unique catch: The recipients are being paid not to go to college.

Instead, these teenagers and 20-year-olds are getting $100,000 each to chase their entrepreneurial dreams for the next two years.

"It seems like the perfect point in our lives to pursue this kind of project," says Cammarata of Newburyport, Mass., who along with 17-year-old David Merfield will be working on software to upend the standard approach to teaching in high school classrooms.

Merfield, the valedictorian of his Princeton, N.J., high school class, is turning down a chance to go to Princeton University to take the fellowship.

Thiel himself hand-picked the winners based on the potential of their proposed projects to change the world.

All the proposals have a high technology angle but otherwise span many disciplines.

One winner wants to create a mobile banking system for the developing world. Another is working to create cheaper biofuels. One wants to build robots that can help out around the house.

The prizes come at a time when debate in the U.S. over the value of higher education has become heated. New graduates mired in student loan debt are encountering one of the toughest job markets in decades. Rising tuitions and diminishing prospects have led many to ask whether college is actually worth the time and money.

"Turning people into debt slaves when they're college students is really not how we end up building a better society," Thiel says.

Thiel made his fortune as a co-founder of online payment service PayPal shortly after graduating from Stanford Law School. He then became the first major investor in Facebook. In conversation and as a philanthropist, Thiel pushes his strong belief that innovation has stagnated in the U.S. and that radical solutions are needed to push civilization forward.

The "20 Under 20" fellowship is one such effort. Thiel believes that the best young minds can contribute more to society by skipping college and bringing their ideas straight to the real world.

And he has the shining example of Facebook to back up his claim. Thiel's faith in the world-changing potential of Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg's idea led him to invest $500,000 in the company, a stake that is now worth billions.
Still, the Zuckerbergs of the tech industry are famous because they are the exceptions. Silicon Valley is littered with decades-worth of failed tech startups.

Vivek Wadhwa, director of research at Duke University's Center for Entrepreneurship and a writer for TechCrunch and Bloomberg Businessweek, has assailed Thiel's program for sending what he sees as the message that anyone can be Mark Zuckerberg.

"Silicon Valley lives in its own bubble. It sees the world through its own prism. It's got a distorted view," Wadhwa says.

"All the people who are making a fuss are highly educated. They're rich themselves. They've achieved success because of their education. There's no way in hell we would have heard about Peter Thiel if he hadn't graduated from Stanford," he says.

Thiel says the "20 Under 20" program shouldn't be judged on the basis of his own educational background or even the merits of his critique of higher education. He urges his critics to wait and see what the fellows achieve over the next two years.

According to data compiled by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, workers with college degrees were laid off during the Great Recession at a much lower rate than workers without degrees. College graduates were also more likely to be rehired.

But for fellowship recipients like John Burnham, 18, such concerns pale next to the idealism of youth. At his prep school in western Massachusetts, Burnham started an alternative newspaper to compete with the school's official publication.

The entrepreneurial experience of creating something out of nothing captured his imagination. Now his ambitions have grown.

Burnham believes that the world's growing population will put an unsustainable strain on the planet's natural resources. That's why he's looking to other worlds to meet humanity's needs.

Specifically, he believes that mining operations on asteroids could hold the key. For the next two years, he'll be studying rocket propulsion technology and puzzling through the economics of interplanetary resource extraction.
"This fellowship is so much of a better fit for my personality than I think college would be," Burnham says. "When you get an opportunity of the magnitude of this fellowship, I couldn't see myself being able to wait."

snip

I just can't see this being a good idea.

^^ Yea, but it seems awesome to be at that age and doing all those innovations. :)

Fueled by tech company growth, San Francisco office rents rose sharply in the second quarter and vacancies decreased, vaulting the city to the leading spot in an otherwise-tepid national office market, according to three separate research reports this week.

"San Francisco jumped to the No. 1 position in the country" for office real estate performance, said Colin Yasukochi, vice president of research at Jones Lang LaSalle and author of one of the reports. "Technology companies are the underlying driving force in the San Francisco market. It's recovering very quickly" from the economic downturn.

He shows the city's average asking office rent at $40.06 per square foot, up from $33.71 a year ago.

Over the past four quarters, about 1.3 million square feet of space was absorbed by tenants, "the best four quarters since 2008, which was the peak of the market," Yasukochi said. While the vacancy rate overall is still a relatively high 16.2 percent, in hot neighborhoods such as South of Market, it's only 6.9 percent, he said.

Chris Macke, senior real estate strategist for research firm CoStar Group in Washington, agreed that San Francisco is bouncing back.

"You folks have seen steady rental-rate increases for effectively every quarter since early 2010, whereas nationally they're still having rental-rate decreases," he said. "In the second quarter, San Francisco had the largest rental-rate increases, going up 4.4 percent compared to the first quarter. That's very, very strong, far better than anywhere else in the country."

Part of the dynamic is that San Francisco tends to be volatile, as supply is constrained for the most sought-after, higher-quality "creative" spaces. "It's a market that is prone to greater increases and decreases; it acts like a tightly wound rubber band," Macke said.

Bright outlook

The San Francisco metropolitan area, which includes San Mateo County, was also on top for rent increases between the first and second quarter in a report from research firm Reis.

"I think the outlook for San Francisco is relatively bright," said Ryan Severino, an economist at Reis. "We expect to see fairly robust rent growth there this year." Both Oakland and San Jose metro areas also are benefiting from increased office demand, Reis found. It ranked San Jose fourth in the nation for rent increases and the East Bay ninth.

Tech firms increasingly are branching out from SoMa into downtown, previously the domain of more traditional companies.

'The hustle and bustle'

"We like the hustle and bustle of the Financial District," said Alex Mehr, co-founder and co-CEO of online dating site Zoosk Inc., which signed a lease in the second quarter for 21,391 square feet at 475 Sansome St. It already was subletting the space from Yahoo.

"Software companies prefer SoMa because they hire a lot of Java developers who live in the South Bay and so (being near) Caltrain is an advantage," Mehr said. "But we're a Web company and our developers live in San Francisco, so the Financial District is a much easier commute for them."

Zoosk went from about 20 employees 18 months ago to almost 90 now. Mehr expects the staff to double annually, so the company will soon outgrow its current location. Rising rents don't concern him too much.

In the heart of the city

"The advantage of being in the heart of San Francisco with quick access to BART and having all that action all around us outweighs any increase in prices," he said.

Meade Boutwell, senior vice president with broker CB Richard Ellis, recently represented a downtown building that remodeled a 3,000-square-foot space specifically to lure tech tenants.

"The Mills Building at 220 Montgomery is one of the oldest buildings downtown, it's a classic that survived the 1906 earthquake," he said. "It's class B space with traditional dropped ceilings. We tore out the ceilings, exposed the raw concrete, brick and piping, which made it very creative-looking. The tech tenants that all wanted SoMa in 2000 said they loved the feeling of the space; we had nine offers." A tech company leased the space for $41 per square foot, a premium from its $35 asking price. Now the owner plans to do a similar rehab elsewhere in the building.

Executives at Starwood Property Trust, a real estate investment trust based in San Francisco, said they are bullish on the city.

"San Francisco has held up better than most markets," said Chris Tokarski, managing director and chief credit officer. "In particular the tech growth is creating more pressure and space is leasing up quicker. You can say that about apartments, retail and office. It clearly is seeing growth on all fronts."

E-mail Carolyn Said at csaid@sfchronicle.com.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/08/BUUK1K7QG3.DTL#ixzz1RaZOaqnR

For months, debate has raged about whether Silicon Valley has been experiencing another bubble that can't possibly be sustained. The frenzy is obvious: New figures from the National Venture Capital Association show more venture money poured into Internet startups last quarter -- $2.3 billion -- than in any period since the dot-com bubble, driven largely by investments in social media companies.

But even as investors race to find the next Facebook or Zynga, the celebration could be short-lived. Two recent surveys of venture capitalists and investment bankers -- the very people poised to grow rich off a new wave of tech stock offerings -- show them increasingly wary that the social sector is becoming too risky. And the stock market sell-offs that have buffeted the tech-heavy Nasdaq index this month sharpened those concerns.
"Those of us who lived through the dot-com bust are very leery about investing in social at these valuations," said Paul Santinelli, a venture capitalist at North Bridge Venture Partners, referring to the premium venture firms have been willing to pay to get into hot startups.

Consider the case of LinkedIn, whose initial public offering in May was one of the valley's biggest-ever for an Internet company and turbocharged the recent investment frenzy.


http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_18671416

The Hot Spot for the Rising Tech Generation (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204781804577271491070580960.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read)

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/WK-BB204_COVER__G_20120315141848.jpg

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-SE391_031212_H_20120312140410.jpg

A bidding war broke out in November when a small house in San Francisco's tightly packed Noe Valley came on the market.

Twenty-two people, including employees of Facebook, Zynga, Google and Pixar, battled for the home. The winning offer was $1.5 million—40% higher than the asking price. The house had a great view, but it was only 1,800 square feet and came with an old kitchen which, like most of the interior, was covered in 1970s plywood paneling. Seen from the curb, there's hardly any house at all—just a one-car garage and gate leading to small front courtyard.

The inconspicuousness was part of the attraction, said Jasmin Arneja, 42, who bought the two-bedroom house with her husband Gagan, 40, a software engineer at a networking start-up. "It's the antithesis to these outrageous bizarre Gordon Gekko-esque houses. It just incorporates so much of our values," said Ms. Arneja, who runs a philanthropic advisory firm.

Housing prices in the San Francisco Bay area are once again soaring, thanks to an infusion of cash from the rising shares of Apple and Google and the initial public offerings by Zynga, LinkedIn, Yelp and soon Facebook, expected to be the largest in Internet history. But while a previous generation of dot-com executives opted for mansions in wealthy San Francisco neighborhoods like Pacific Heights and tony Silicon Valley suburbs like Atherton, this generation is gravitating to modest homes and condos in grittier parts of the city.

Why Branch Is Moving Back To New York City
BY JOSH MILLER
ON MARCH 27, 2012

My co-founder likes to say, “Being a startup founder in San Francisco feels like being a banker in New York.” Our founding team of three started Branch, a conversation platform, six months ago in New York.

We spent the first few months bootstrapping our prototype from a co-working space in Lower Manhattan, until this January, when we packed our bags and moved to downtown San Francisco to work with Ev, Biz, and Jason at the Obvious Corporation. It has been a wonderful experience – we have encountered incredible people and product advice – but in a few weeks time, the company will be moving back to New York (bringing Jason Goldman with us).

In short, we think it is a better city to build our business in.

San Francisco is just too nice. The nature is too accessible, the architecture is too Victorian, and the weather is too perfect. The quality of life here is unrivaled. But I feel like I haven’t earned that yet. One day, I’ll bike across the bridge and meet my family at Mill Valley Beerworks.

For now, I miss the grit and grime of New York. It is real and raw, and the commotion of the city is contagious. Startup life is characterized by constant motion and tenacious tinkering, not hikes on Mt. Tam and brunch in the Mission, and the pace of life and breadth of humanity in New York is invigorating. I like to tell people: New York is like coffee. You know it’s not good for you, and you don’t really like the taste, but you just can’t get enough. The rush, the jitters, they’re addicting, as are startups.

And for whatever reason, be it its youth, modest size, or proximity to more established industries, the New York tech scene has more of a “let’s stick together” ethos about it. That is not a knock on San Francisco tech folk. They are equally compassionate and caring. But there are just so many startups here.

In New York, everybody knows each other and it is common practice to rally together, whether for a New York Tech Meetup, HackNY fundraiser, or a lively SOPA protest. Given the volatility of a startup’s life, this camaraderie is a comforting and invaluable resource for any New York founder.

Plus, the startup scene in New York feels like a movement. In San Francisco, tech is just what you do, what you have always done. Thus, the standard coffee question is: “What are you working on these days?” While in New York, the more applicable line of questioning is: “Where are you coming from? What did you do? What inspired you to drop everything . . . ?”
This and more youthful self-indulgence @ http://pandodaily.com/2012/03/27/why-branch-is-moving-back-to-new-york-city/

San Francisco's "peer-to-peer" Lending Club just landed a whale from the world of very high finance.

John Mack, former CEO of Morgan Stanley, is the newest member of its board, the online company announced Thursday. The appointment is a significant milestone for Lending Club, which has originated more than $580 million in loans since the launch of its peer-to-peer program in 2007.

The program, which acts as a go-between for low-interest personal loans between credit-worthy borrowers and lender/investors, was called "a winning combination" by Mack. "I am truly excited to serve on the company's board," he said in a statement.

Peer-to-peer lending is not the only Bay Area connection Mack has made since he stepped down from the top post at Morgan Stanley two years ago. In March, he was named a senior adviser to KKR & Co., the bi-coastal private equity behemoth, run by Henry Kravis in New York and George Roberts in Menlo Park.
Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/12/BU451O1IRA.DTL&tsp=1

Andrew S. Ross
Published 8:37 pm, Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Might Michael Dell consider moving here?

It would make sense if a Bay Area private equity firm succeeds in its goal to take his eponymous company private. He would be closer to the new owners of what not long ago was the largest PC maker in the world. He will also be within walking, or at least driving, distance of the company's R&D center, located in a 250,000-square-foot complex on Great America Parkway in Santa Clara.

And, the weather, dare we say, would be more commodious than Austin, Texas.

It all depends on whether Silver Lake Partners, which coincidentally just raised $7 billion for its newest buyout fund, persuades Dell and others involved in the deal that a leveraged buyout is the way to go. Bloomberg reported Wednesday that Silver Lake was close to lining up about $15 billion of the $22 billion to $25 billion the deal is estimated to cost.

Neither Dell nor Silver Lake has commented, but the private equity firm, headquartered in Menlo Park, has been talking to prospective partners, like banks, other equity firms and perhaps pension funds. Should the deal go through, it would be the largest debt-financed buyout of a public company in several years.

It would also be the biggest deal in the 13-year history of the Silicon Valley investment firm, which specializes in "mature" technology investments . . . .

As alluring as the deal is to Silver Lake, many analysts doubt it holds as much promise for Dell. Already carrying $9 billion in debt, according to Bloomberg, the besieged computer company would be burdened even more by a leveraged buyout, which would crimp its ability to move beyond the fading consumer PC business into areas like cloud computing and corporate applications . . . .

On the other hand, Dell has plenty of cash on hand - $11.3 billion as of November - and a still-significant revenue stream ($58.6 billion last year). Plus, Michael Dell is reportedly prepared to kick in some or all of his 16 percent stake in the company, worth $3.5 billion, as part of the deal . . . .

And Silicon Valley is standing by, willing to help.
http://www.sfgate.com/business/bottomline/article/Talks-may-bring-Dell-into-Bay-Area-fold-4200798.php

Certainly amazing how quickly Dell went from superstar to afterthought.

I assume Sliver Lake wants to leverage the s/w technology since this actually looks like an area where money can be made. Maybe spin-off the PC business altogether.

Over there, through the haze to I see a sign saying "DELL Stadium: Home of the 49ers" ?